Trends

Engineering and technology accounted for 14,996 postgraduate degrees out of a UK total of 177,876 for 1997 1998. It is the most popular science-based discipline, and the fourth most popular overall. Business and administration tops the table, while computer sciences trails in at ninth, according to a recent parliamentary answer. Mining and quarrying top the […]

Engineering and technology accounted for 14,996 postgraduate degrees out of a UK total of 177,876 for 1997 1998. It is the most popular science-based discipline, and the fourth most popular overall.

Business and administration tops the table, while computer sciences trails in at ninth, according to a recent parliamentary answer.

Mining and quarrying top the list of risky jobs, with one in 150 workers in that industry being killed or seriously injured at work each year. The safest jobs are in service industries, where the risk falls to one in 1,120.

The figures, from the Eagle Star Insurance, show some dramatic reductions when compared to figures for1889. In that year, 441 railway workers died, and the industry topped the table with a sobering one-in-34 risk of death or serious injury. Similarly, while 1,176 miners perished in 1889, only six died last year.

Fewer deaths can be at least partly accounted for by the fact that there are now fewer workers. But the risk of injury or death has not dropped as far as one might expect.

Meanwhile, figures from the Office of National Statistics show UK aerospace employment falling by 33% in four years, from 149,000 in 1992 to 104,000 in 1996.